O God, Be Merciful to Me, a Sinner!

What a simple and beautiful prayer we hear in today’s Gospel story. It is a simple prayer that is steeped in the second characteristic of personal transformation, that is humility. There can be no personal transformation and change without this important virtue.

But the important question is, What is humility? There are many misguided ideas rampant in our culture about this virtue. The answer to this question may seem a paradoxical one since we proclaim this reality: Our God is Himself humble. God is humble because He is perfect. This is not how we usually think about humility.

Our society defines   humility as humbleness of mind and meekness. In religion humility is     defined as: the virtue by which one restrains the appetite for high things and recognizes his own weaknesses and strengths and, through it, realizes his dependence on God, without whom he is nothing.

Humility truly means that I recognize who God created when He created me! It means having neither an aggrandized nor a diminished notion of myself but simply recognizing who I am. It always includes a recognition of my need for God. Without Him I am nothing! With Him, and because of Him, I am a unique human being in His creation who has been given personal gifts that are to be used to make His Kingdom real, here and now. When I recognize that His Kingdom is within me and think and act with this awareness, then I’m being who He intends me to be. I must recognize that I have been created with certain talents and gifts for the sake of helping others, who join me on the journey of life, to achieve this awareness.

Humility is not being a floor-mat on which others can walk. Humility is being the person God intends me to be and who, like Jesus, attributes all of my personal gifts to God.

I was once asked: How does one become truly humble? This is the answer I gave: Think about Christ! If you study His life you will find all the clues you need to become humble. In fact He was reported as   saying: Learn from Me for I am meek and humble in heart. True humility means measuring all my actions and attitudes by Christ. What is true is that without a deep knowledge of Christ we can never achieve true humility. For without Christ humility is impossible. As we see in the Pharisee, even religion becomes pride in human achievements – pharisaic self-glorification. The Pharisee failed to recognize that even the good things he did were only possible because of God’s help.

The first characteristic of metanoia is desire. The second is humility.

Ask: How present are these in my life?